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Alexander Schmorell
Saint Alexander Schmorell (16 September 1917 in Orenburg, Russia; – 13 July 1943 in Munich) was one of five Munich University students who formed a resistance group known as White Rose (Weiße Rose) which was active against Germany's Nazi regime from June 1942 to February 1943. In 2012, he was glorified as a New Martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Early life Schmorell's father, a medical doctor, was German-born and raised in Russia. Schmorell's mother was Russian, the daughter of a Russian Orthodox priest. Schmorell was baptised in the Russian Orthodox Church. His mother died of typhus during the Russian Civil War when he was two years old. In 1920 his widowed father married a German woman who, like him, grew up in Russia. They left Russia and moved to Munich, Germany, in 1921, when Schmorell was four years old. His Russian nanny came along with them and she took his late mother's place in his upbringing. Alexander Schmorell grew up bilingual, speaking both German and Russian. His friends gave him the nickname 'Schurik', a nickname he would be called by his closer friends for the rest of his life.The White Rose Studies He was an Eastern Orthodox Christian who considered himself both German and Russian. Military service After his Abitur (equivalent to high level High School diploma), he was called into the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst) and then into the Wehrmacht (German Army during the Nazi era). In 1938, he took part in the annexation of Austria and eventually in the Wehrmacht invasion of Czechoslovakia. After his military service, the artistically gifted Alexander Schmorell began studies in medicine in 1939 in Hamburg. In the autumn of 1940, he went back with his student corps to Munich where he got to know Hans Scholl, and later Willi Graf. Together with Hans Scholl, Schmorell put together the White Rose's first four anti-Nazi leaflets. In the second leaflet Schmorell wrote a passage containing an outcry against the Holocaust. The Russian front In June 1942, Schmorell took part as a combat medic in the Russian campaign on the Eastern Front, together with Hans Scholl, Willi Graf and Jürgen Wittenstein, and came to strongly oppose the Nazis' treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians during campaigns there. Once back from Russia, he continued his studies in Munich in the 1942-1943 semester. Dissident In December 1942, Schmorell, along with Hans Scholl, sought contact with Professor Kurt Huber. Together in 1943 they wrote the fifth leaflet "Aufruf an alle Deutschen!" (Appeal to all Germans!), which Schmorell then distributed in Austrian cities. Along with Hans Scholl and Willi Graf, he also painted words such as "Nieder mit Hitler" (Down with Hitler) and "Freiheit" (Freedom) on house walls in Munich. It is suggested that he and Sophie Scholl, (Hans' sister) shared a romance, although Sophie herself was previously engaged to Fritz Hartnagel. However, little evidence of this exists outside of Lillian Groag's play The White Rose. After the arrests of Christoph Probst and Hans and Sophie Scholl, Schmorell attempted to escape to Switzerland but was eventually arrested on 24 February 1943, the day of his friends' funeral, after being recognized in an air raid shelter. Trial and execution Alexander Schmorell was sentenced to death on 19 April 1943 at the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) in the second trial against the White Rose. In the letters he wrote from prison he tried to console his family and assured them that he was at peace with his fate and not fearful of death. On July 13, 1943, at the age of 25, Schmorell was put to death by guillotine along with Kurt Huber at the Munich-Stadelheim Prison. See also * Sophie Scholl – The Final Days * White Rose References In film Schmorell was portrayed by Johannes Suhm in the film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. External links *The White Rose Foundation with substantiated background information about the White Rose (In German) **The 6 leaflets (In German) **Biography of Alexander Schmorell (In German) *OrthodoxWiki.org -- Alexander Schmorell *Alexander Schmorell: a Witness in Dark Times *Article on His Glorification (Canonization) *Canonization in Munich: Saint Alexander Schmorell Category:1917 births Category:1943 deaths Category:People condemned by Nazi courts Category:German people of World War II Category:Russian and Soviet-German people Category:German people of Russian descent Category:Russian people of German descent Category:Executed activists Category:Executed Widerstand members Category:People executed by guillotine by Nazi Germany Category:Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Category:German civilians killed in World War II Category:Orthodox Christians in the German Resistance Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians opposed to the Third Reich Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians from Germany Category:German saints Category:People executed for treason against Germany Category:Imperial Russian emigrants to Germany Category:White Rose members Category:People from Orenburg Category:German people executed by decapitation Category:Russian people executed by decapitation Category:Executed people from Orenburg Oblast Category:Russian people executed by Nazi Germany Category:German people executed by Nazi Germany